Why the Hordes?

[Babalonian]

Hordes are an avoidable nuicance, less avoidable if they happen to be directly hindering the only task/objective you want to do, but as Way just pointed out, last night us knits had waaaaaay too many generals barking orders to everyone and not enough stars available to pluck outa the sky to go around and give each of them one.

I'll trade you other two countries, all your hordes at us for a month if you'll relieve us of all our pocket-Kim Jongs for a week.

[crazyivan]

I'll trade you other two countries, all your hordes at us for a month if you'll relieve us of all our pocket-Kim Jongs for a week.

What's really funny is having visting generals start barking at you.   Rooks have one to many Napoleons as is no thank you!

[Chilli]

I miss the Zone Base fights and the Scattered Strats we had in 2008 
Getting your hands on a Zone base when there was equal numbers fighting over it was the best feeling ever. I remember once, on a day off from work i sat upping time after time trying to help get a cap over such a base, next thing i knew we finally got it and 3 or 4 hours had past. All I can say is the celebration of accomplishment was a nice ice cold beer and the biggest smile it'd hurt your face a little 

Dolby is on to something, it is not the fight itself the horde is interested in.  Others including Fugitive have stated this as well.  The "collective" force is only interested in progress being made by acquiring his opponents territory.  "What if" the territory was weakened away from the airfield to the point, the base was easily captured?

I have said this many times but not nearly enough, "The strategic value / reward in the game is so minuscule, that hardly anyone engages in a traditional war."  Instead the game is driven by capturing bases.  That is the way it is, and with recent changes, we can see how easily this process can be impacted, one way or the other.  Yet, attacking a country's resources, barely is noticeable unless HQ is destroyed and a country looses radar. 

Now dig deep enough into the AH manual and you could possibly unlock the key to keeping the radar down for the maximum amount of time. 

If you were adequately penalized / rewarded by porking country resources, more fights would develop in wider areas in order to defend against such strikes.  Taking the battle away from an airfield, removes the aspect of vulching.  The high altitude bombing with escorts would increase and attackers and interceptors would assume more traditional roles.

[Oddball-CAF]

"The strategic value / reward in the game is so minuscule, that hardly anyone engages in a traditional war." 

  I absolutely agree with this statement, Chili. Given the way the rebuild times are for various hangers and strats, there is no longer
a viable operational or strategic aspect to Aces High. It has vanished. All that is left is a tactical component which in and of itself
generates these so-called hordes.
  Pretty much gone are the decent sized bomber missions; they're run so infrequently that one of 'em generates
so much excitement the "country text" buffer is pasted away with reports for several minutes on 'em. The guys that
used to fly those bombers are now in fighters. There's very little sense to knocking out hangers or strats at fields
surrounding a "main target" when said hangers and strats will merely rebuild themselves in the same or less time it
takes those bombers to return to base.
  Some of the maps themselves contribute to a large extent to the "hordes", consisting of choke points where
the diffusion of air assets isn't an option that is either desired tactially or operationally nor pleasingly contemplated. ie:
We know most guys don't want to fly more than a sector to a fight, and 1.5 sectors is pushing it. Two sectors?
Considered insanity by most of the pilots flying today.
  It has taken years to reach this point with tinkering with strats, ENYs, CAPs , maps, failing to address it.
Hell, the players themselves do nothing to fight these "hordes". Fighter sweeps are non-existent, so
one or two pilots are constantly launching themselves at large numbers of enemy only to die whining
they got "ganged" when a decisive thrust of pure fighters injected into the defense would probably
turn the tide. So, to a large extent, the players themselves are responsible for the perceived hording.
  I used to thoroughly enjoy the bombing and fighter aspects of the game, regularly participating
in bomber and jabo operations but have mainly been doing light fighter stuff for several months
now. There's very little point to bombing anymore beyond the instant gratification of seeing
hangers or town buildings blow up. Given the map sizes I no longer even care of the enemy
captures a field, or two, or ten. There's no actual resets today beyond the two per day we see
as a result of the arena CAP tinkering. I can't recall the last time a map was "won" by
a country other than on the "mickey mouse" one. Hell, with 250 fields, who cares if
some of 'em get rolled?
  So I'm content to mainly fly fighters these days and if log on and see what I perceive as
a good fight in progress or one developing into one, I'll head there as the vast majority
of pilots do these days; and I don't blame 'em one bit. It's the only game in town.

Regards, Oddball

   

[ink]

not every one 'whines' when the hourde kills them, there are some who truly enjoy fighting the hourde, such as myself, hell im not happy unless im dieing, to me that is 'winning' and seeings thats how I have flown since my start, it aint changin anytime soon,  the hourdes are my prey I feed off them, it would suk if they were gone.